Our Entire Walk In 8 Verses
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus Questioned About Fasting
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
The Setting: Why This Is Already Scandalous
Jesus is eating with “tax collectors and sinners.”
In that culture, table fellowship meant acceptance. You didn’t casually share meals. Eating together symbolized spiritual solidarity and belonging.
The Pharisees are thinking:
“A holy teacher should separate from impurity.”
Jesus responds with:
“Those who are well have no need of a physician…”
He’s redefining holiness . Instead of separation from sinners, healing of sinners.
Then John’s disciples ask about fasting. Why? Where does that question come from?
This is where the wedding imagery explodes with meaning.
Jewish Weddings in Jesus’ Day
A Jewish wedding wasn’t a 30-minute ceremony and a 3-hour reception.
It was:
- A multi-day feast (often 7 days)
- The most joyful social event in village life
- A time when fasting was absolutely inappropriate
- So joyful that even rabbis paused religious disciplines
In fact:
- Guests were called “children of the bridechamber”
- They were expected to celebrate extravagantly
- To fast at a wedding would have been culturally offensive
To Jesus, weddings symbolized the arrival of covenant fulfillment. They were events of celebration and joy. Becoming one with one another happens. The laying down of one’s life for another is the promise that fills the air.
Why Jesus Calls Himself the Bridegroom
When Jesus says:
“The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them…”
This is not a random metaphor.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, God is the bridegroom of Israel.
For example:
- Isaiah speaks of God rejoicing over His people as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride (Isaiah 62:5).
- Hosea portrays God restoring His unfaithful bride.
- Jeremiah uses wedding imagery to describe covenant love.
So when Jesus casually refers to himself as “the bridegroom,” He is making a massive theological claim.
He is saying:
“The long-awaited covenant celebration is happening right now.
God has come for His bride.”
That’s why fasting doesn’t fit.
Fasting was associated with:
- Mourning
- Repentance
- Longing for deliverance
But deliverance is sitting at the table eating with sinners.
What About “The Bridegroom Will Be Taken Away”?
Then Jesus says:
“The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away…”
That phrase “taken away” is forceful. It implies violence.
He is foreshadowing:
- His arrest
- His crucifixion
- His physical absence
After that, fasting will make sense again — not as religious performance, but as longing for His return.
What This Means Spiritually
There are layers here.
Jesus re-frames holiness
Holiness is not distancing from sinners, it is healing sinners.
Jesus re-frames religious discipline
Fasting is not wrong.
It’s just wrong for the moment.
Religious practice must match spiritual reality. You don’t fast at a wedding.
Jesus declares the arrival of the messianic age
The wedding feast imagery hints at something bigger:
The prophets spoke of a final, cosmic wedding celebration between God and His people. A theme that reaches full expression in Revelation 19 with the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”
Jesus is saying:
The celebration has begun.
Why This Matters for Lent
Lent is a season of fasting, repentance, and preparation leading toward Easter. On the surface, that seems opposite of what Jesus just said. If the Bridegroom has come… why fast?
Because Jesus also said:
“The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away… and then they will fast.”
Lent lives in that tension.
We live in what theologians call the “already and not yet.”
- The Bridegroom has come.
- The Bridegroom was taken away.
- The Bridegroom is risen.
- The Bridegroom will come again.
So what is Lent? It is not pretending Jesus hasn’t come. It is allowing our hearts to stretch.
Lent as Wineskin Stretching
If the new wine is the living presence of Christ, then Lent asks:
Are our wineskins flexible enough to hold Him?
Old wineskins today might look like:
- Performing Christianity. Checking the boxes because we just want to be right.
- Fasting as bargaining with God. If I do this hard thing, God owes me.
- Measuring holiness by comparison. As long as we see others not trying as hard as we are, we feel better about ourselves. Like God is the trooper and as long as someone else is speeding faster than us, he’ll pull them over. We’re safe
- Religious activity without intimacy. Doing all the right things but our hearts are dry. Our tongues are rarely offer words or adoration and amazement.
We all live this way. Our lives and hearts drift towards complacency. But lent disrupts that for us. Lent, rightly practiced, is not self-punishment. Lent is a pause. It is making space. Stopping to observe what has become our normal.
It is admitting:
“Parts of me are too stiff to hold Your life.”
Fasting during Lent is not mourning as if the wedding never happened.
It is longing for deeper union with the Bridegroom.
The Movement of the Passage
Look at the flow:
- Jesus eats with sinners (mercy over sacrifice).
- He declares Himself the Bridegroom (joy has arrived).
- He warns about old wineskins (your structures must change).
- He predicts His removal (there will be loss and longing).
This is the whole Christian life in miniature.
Mercy.
Joy.
Disruption.
Longing.
Renewal.
The Question for This Lenten Season
So here is the deeper invitation as we enter Lent:
- Are you fasting because you think God is withholding goodness?
- Or are you fasting to make room for more of Him?
- Are you clinging to old skins that once worked?
- Or are you willing to stretch?
If we are honest, it’s a “Yes” to all of the above. Lent is not about proving devotion. It’s a chance to look at the things we’ve put in the way of following our Lord. And we don’t take this pause alone. We pause together. Coming to this wedding, this laying down of our lives out of love for another as we experience a deeper sense of eternity.
It is not about holy ascetisism. It is about becoming supple. Willing to trust in something new and letting go of something old.
The Bridegroom has come.
The wine is still fermenting.
Trusting our Lord because he trusts that our hearts can hold it.